


No Open Flame Within 5 Feet

by Vrunka



Series: Fire Safety Compliance [2]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Masturbation, Ridiculously fast wound recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 13:49:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: The days pass uneventful. There isn’t much to do when Dep isn’t calling him in for help. And Dep isn’t calling him. And it’s mostly Sharky’s fault.





	No Open Flame Within 5 Feet

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel no one really asked for but I felt compelled to write regardless hahah.

Sharky wakes up.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but the sun is peeking through his curtains and his brain is the nice fuzzy omelette of too much alcohol and too much sleep.

He scratches a hand down his nose, across his eyes. 

Still wearing his hoodie. Pantless. As it should be. He grins, fingers scratching his hip and then he freezes.

Dried come on his skin. He knows the feeling of it well enough. He’s a dude and he’s gross sometimes and it just fuckin’ happens.

But it’s his come usually. And this time it is not.

It’s not his because last night he did some stupid shit.

Right.

Right, fuck.

He sits up. Too quick. The room spins, dips. Sharky shakes his head, he finds his boxers where they were discarded last night. Thrown haphazardly atop his jeans.

Dep’s jacket is...not where Sharky had thought it landed. It’s not anywhere in Sharky’s room.

It’s not anywhere because Dep is gone.

Dep is gone.

The blanket Sharky usually leaves crumpled on the couch has been folded, neatly, left draped over the arm. The empties are no longer strewn about the table but lined up in a row by the sink.

Little drops of water clinging to the aluminum.

Dep washed them. He fuckin’ washed them.

—

The days pass uneventful.

There isn’t much to do when Dep isn’t calling him in for help. And Dep isn’t calling him. The radio sits silent and neglected in its stand. Little green light.

It’s whatever.

It doesn’t fuckin’ matter. It’s not like Dep can’t handle himself. He’s a goddamn cop. Better than that one that keeps playing on repeat over the airwaves. Federal Marshal Dumbshit or whatever his name is. Faith’s drooling little bitch.

It’s not in Sharky’s nature to hate people on sight, but God, the guy even looks like a tool. It’s really a wonder that Dep is interested in saving him at all.

Sharky frowns, spins his beer can between his palms. Watching Faith on loop with her hand on the Marshal’s shoulder. Listening to the melodic ticks of her voice.

He bounces his knee. Scratches his belly, his thigh. Lingering.

He thinks about when Faith would come visit him before everything went to shit. Her earnest pleading, the fall of her hair. Join us and be happy.

He rubs his palm more purposefully against the front of his boxers, cupping. Teasing. Breathing between his teeth. His knee bouncing, bouncing.

He thinks about Faith, watching her on the television. He thinks about her with her eyes narrowed and her hand on Dep’s shoulder instead of the Marshal’s. The floral, Bliss smell of her, cloying and pungent like weed but sweeter.

He thinks about Faith.

He does not think about Dep’s shoulders. The light freckles on them and the way they moved as he fucked his own fist.

Sharky groans, leans back as he slips his hand through the flap in his boxers. Bare feet curling on the cheap, vinyl linoleum of his kitchen.

God, he thinks about Dep. And he’s not really sure what to make of it, even as he’s doing it. Dep is ripped and he’s a complete badass and he’s bloodthirsty and all of those things are just...really, really hitting Sharky’s buttons.

It’s like a contact high, maybe. Or that phenomena where people wanna fuck at the end of the world.

Sharky twists his wrist, cock way past just chub; he’s filled out the front of his boxers just thinking about Dep’s goddamn arms. He’s about to slide the elastic down past his balls and really get to work when the door to his trailer opens.

Just pushes open.

No knocking.

No warning.

Which can only mean Peggies and here fucking Sharky is with his hand literally down his fuckin’ pants.

He freezes like some sort of animal, mouth drying out in an instant. Panic. Like when a fire gets too big and starts burning things he didn’t mean to.

It only lasts a second, even if that second of suspense feels like a lifetime. Sharky’s dick twitches in his palm.

Dep’s head appears around the door.

Sharky’s first thought is: “Son of fuckin’ bitch, Dep.”

His second is: “Jesus, you look like shit.”

He doesn’t ask about the knocking. He is becoming more and more convinced that Dep was in fact raised in some sort of heathen collective where basic manners weren’t a thing.

And Dep does look like shit.

In a second Sharky is up, crossing to Dep’s side. The hand he didn’t just have gripping his dick he offers to Dep; steadying him when Dep sways threateningly toward the floor.

Utterly wrecked.

Dark red circles under his eyes. Clearly a broken nose, a gash across the top of it that is slowly oozing still. One of his shoulders hanging limp, arm just...sort of dangling. And blood, blood.

Tattered shirt and what Sharky would hazard to guess are gunshot wounds.

Dep grunts when Sharky pushes him toward the chair he had so recently been occupying. The cheap wood of it protests Dep’s weight and how forcefully he collapses down onto it.

His eyes close, head tipping back.

Sharky is still pitching a tent, he rubs his palms against the tops of his thighs and sort of just hopes it’ll go away and Dep won’t notice it.

“What the fuck happened?” he asks.

Dep sighs. Eyes still closed. Sharky can see his abs contracting with every breath from the way the shirt has been ripped.

It’s not hot, it’s not hot, it’s not hot.

It’s fuckin’ life-threatening.

And it’s hot as shit.

“Tried clearing out that hotel to the north. Musta missed an alarm, it was crawling with Peggies and—,” Dep swallows, thick. Pinches the bridge of his nose, hissing at the contact, sharp, sibilant s. Something makes a dull snapping sort of sound as he twists his fingers and Sharky’s erection fuckin’ twitches again.

Not the time. Not the time. Not the fucking time.

Dep’s breath rattles between his teeth. “Sorry,” he says. “Your place was closest. Didn’t know where else to go.”

“It’s...it’s cool, man.”

Dep smiles. He looks tired. “Dropped my rifle,” he says. “Just got it custom painted too.”

“That blows,” Sharky says.

Voice only catching a little bit on the word.

Dep quirks an eyebrow, eyes flitting down Sharky’s form and back. Because it’s not like either of them could just forget. Sharky only flinches a little bit, when Dep meets his gaze again with a grin.

“I just want it on the record that I was...I was like this before you got here, man. I am not popping wood over you bleeding out in my kitchen.”

Dep rolls his eyes. He sits up a little straighter. “Sorry to have interrupted, I guess,” he says. Like he’s laughing. Which shouldn’t be believable with the state he is in but Sharky is seeing it so...

Dep grips the shoulder that seems to be injured. He bites his lip.

“You gonna be okay?” It’s a dumb question. Of course he will be okay. Deputy is superhuman. An android, a machine.

Dep grimaces. “Dislocated,” he says. “Don’t suppose you know how to fix it?”

“Uhhh.”

“Think you could do it if I told you how?”

“I mean. Probably? It’s not like we have another choice right?”

Dep nods. He sighs. “Right. You got any painkillers?”

“Got beer. Probably a bottle of tequila around here somewhere.”

Dep frowns. He grabs the can from where Sharky had left it sitting on the table. Upends and empties it in one smooth motion. Then he stands, crosses to the couch and lays on the ground in front of it.

He’s already steadier.

He’s a fuckin’ robot. An actual killing machine.

Sharky follows, unsure of what’s needed of him. At least his cock has softened somewhat, that’s a relief. He stands over Dep, feet just a few inches from Dep’s hip and the thinks about how he really probably should put on some pants. Maybe a shirt.

Standing in his undies over the dude he was just jerking off to has to be some sort of fucked up.

He’s about to say as much when Dep lifts the injured arm. Holds it at an angle. He licks his lips. Staring up at Sharky who is staring down at him.

“Go ahead and take my wrist,” he says. “And you’re gonna just pull. Not-not fast, just,” he swallows, tips his head slightly. “Just steady, okay?”

“Is it gonna hurt you?”

“It’ll hurt a lot less when it’s done.”

Sharky nods. His hands are sweating when he takes Dep’s wrist between them. “Not fast,” he says.

“Just steady.”

Sharky pulls. Leans his weight back and back, tugging Dep’s arm with him. At first he thinks that it isn’t working, that he must be doing something wrong and then—

Something shifts. Some internal part of Dep gives a cracking thunk and beneath him Dep lets out a groan. His eyes flutter shut, then reopen, his nostrils flare.

“Fuck,” he says. “Aw fuck.”

Sharky thinks of the last time Dep said almost exactly that. The heat of his jizz all over Sharky’s hip, voice warm and thick against Sharky’s neck.

Sharky’s fingers tense on Dep’s wrist.

“Did we...”

Dep swallows. Nods. “Yeah,” he breathes. “You got it. Fuck.” He hasn’t sat up, his wrist arches in Sharky’s grip, fingers brushing Sharky’s palm.

“Thank you,” he says.

Sharky lets go. He steps back. “It was really nothing, dude. You still look like hell though.” Sharky’s stomach flips as Dep sits up. Back against the couch. Head level with...

Not the time.

Jesus fucking Christ it is so not the time.

Sharky takes another step away.

“You want like another beer or something? Wanna wash your face?” Anything to stop Dep staring up at him. Thick lashes and quirked brows and his goddamn lips that Sharky already knows look really fuckin’ good on his dick.

Dep blinks. Touches the dried blood in his beard like he had forgotten. He grimaces, then nods.

“Can I use your shower?”

“Of course, man. Will warn you though, the water can still get kinda blissy sometimes? Just. You know.”

Dep closes his eyes. He grins.

“I know. I’ll target the water treatment plant next. Virgil has been urging me to anyway.”

Leave it to Dep, still covered in blood from his last self-appointed mission, to already be looking ahead to the next. A God. Damn. Machine.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know but. I like having a plan,” Dep says. He pushes himself up, arms flexing as he does so in a way that Sharky refuses to acknowledge. He grips his side, fingers slipping beneath the tear in his shirt.

“You sure you’re gonna be alright there, Dep?”

“A shower and another beer and I’ll be stellar. The shots just winged me. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m fuckin’ positive, dude, that you’re the only person I will ever know who considers walking off a gunshot wound as ‘stellar’.”

“Well, dwelling on it certainly won’t help me,” Dep says. “Near death experiences are nothing new. You eventually learn to just...live with it.”

“Which is why you’re a badass and the rest of us are just people.”

Dep rolls his eyes. He scratches the back of his neck. Sharky imagines he can hear the injured arm clicking whenever it moves. But it seems sure and steady enough. Like nothing had been wrong to begin with.

Fuckin’ inhuman.

Sharky isn’t sure what to do with himself as Dep heads into the bathroom. He turns the television and it’s ever looping broadcast off. He cracks a beer.

There are four left.

The idea of rationing that he had had is an idealistic unreality.

Unfortunate.

He considers clothes again—Dep probably isn’t going to just leave once he is showered, Sharky probably shouldn’t let him if he tried; Hope County’s goddamn singular hope, Sharky should at least make sure he is somewhat recovered before unleashing him back on the masses—but he decides against it. The couch is closer and his erection is effectively killed.

Casa de Boshaw, pants optional, has always been his motto.

He drinks deeply from his beer and listens to the pattering sound of his shower. He does not think about the water sluicing over Dep’s naked skin, tuning the sun-kissed gold of it just slightly more pink.

Or at least he doesn’t think about it very long.

He’s really not trying to stage Night of the Living Dead with his boner. He’s really, really not. He thinks about Not Hot things. Like Dep breaking Peggie necks, like Dep leveling his handgun against whimpering Peggies’ temples, like Dep dragging Peggies off of watch points by their ankles. Dep’s uninhibited taste for violence. Measured rage doled out in portions.

Sharky dozes.

Thinking of these things that should be horrifying and not at all attractive.

He wakes up in a sweat with Dep’s hand on his knee. He starts, flinches and Dep’s hand retreats.

“Sorry,” he says as Sharky blinks up at him. “You didn’t seem to hear me so I...”

He isn’t dressed. There’s a towel cinched around his waist. Threadbare and grey, Sharky recognizes it as his own. It’s only just wide enough to wrap around Dep’s hips. His sloping stomach, all abdominal muscles and defined obliques.

And hair. Not as much of it as Sharky would expect. Sparse across his pecs, around his nipples, slightly thicker below his belly button.

Sharky swallows, dry-mouthed. Realizes belatedly that Dep is standing, staring at him, waiting for some sort of answer. Sharky’s fingers twitch against the couch.

“I...have absolutely no idea what you just said to me,” Sharky says after another beat of really awkward silence. Dep’s eyebrows flex. “Look, man, like you can’t just wander around my home in your Adonis body and and and you know. Like expect me to have a half-rational conversation with you.”

“My Adonis body?” Dep isn’t smiling, but his tone is.

Sharky rolls his eyes. “You don’t need the goddamn ego boost. Go put a shirt on at least, for my sanity.”

Dep does smile at that. The lines of his body relax somewhat. “I’m trying to,” he says. “I was asking if I can borrow some clothes. Mine are kinda...” He trails off. Rolls his shoulders. Like there was never an injury to begin with. The cut at the very top of his nose is about the only thing that still looks kinda raw. The ones on his torso were just aesthetic after all, it seems. Little splotches of pink and red like hickeys all along Dep’s abs.

Sharky swallows. Get the man some clothes, he thinks, put a stop to this dumb shit.

Instead he says: “Might be easier to fuck if you’re still naked though, huh?”

Dep’s eyes narrow. His throat works over a swallow of his own. The tender skin vibrating shallowly with every breath. “It might be,” he says. His tongue traces his teeth. “That what we’re doing, Charlemagne?”

No. Because it’s not the time. Because forty-five minutes ago Dep dragged his ass through the door like a goddamn corpse. Because Sharky isn’t even sure what he’s after by asking. By turning Dep’s legitimate distress into a fucking booty call.

“If you’re feelin’ up to that, I mean,” Sharky says. And he can taste his own shit-eating grin.

Dep takes a deep breath through his nose, it only sounds a little clogged. A slight hitch. He lets it out, rattling between his teeth.

He has no reason to agree. Sharky has given him none. But he loosens the towel around his waist, the familiar grey fabric falls to his feet. He’s still slightly moist from the shower, like aluminum cans, little drops stuck to his skin, beading in the hair. 

Dep rakes his fingers through it, other hand sliding to the back of his neck. Centerfold postures. Encircling his cock just enough to get it rising the littlest bit.

“You gonna actually touch me this time,” Dep asks. Touching himself, dragging his fingers down the length of it. Sharky pretends he doesn’t hear the slight catch in Dep’s voice. The little spark of hurt they are both pointedly not acknowledging. Dep sleeping on the couch after. Dep leaving in the morning without a word.

“Do you want me to?”

Dep bites his lip. Collapses onto Sharky’s lap. The couch groans. They sink in the pillows, Dep’s knees on either side of Sharky’s hips. Sharky’s tattered old boxers the only barrier between them.

Dep’s hands guiding Sharky’s to his nipple, to his hip.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Like John Goddamn Seed and there’s a boner-killing thought Sharky needs to nip right in the bud. He shakes his head, reflexive, ends up with his forehead pressed against Dep’s shoulder as he rolls Dep’s nipple under his thumb.

He doesn’t have experience with men in this arena, but tits are tits and Sharky has plenty of hands-on where those are concerned. If the noises Dep is making, gut-curling little sighs, are any indication, it’s that Sharky’s studies haven’t been a waste. He presses a nail into the soft surrounding flesh, drags it over the peaking brown skin.

“Little bit rough, right, Dep?” He says, angling his chin to say it against Dep’s throat. Feeling the way his voice vibrates in Dep’s skin. The sweet taste of Bliss still lingering on Dep’s flesh.

Contact high, Sharky thinks again. Chock it up to a fuckin’ contact high cuz you’re a piece of shit coward when it matters.

But he won’t, he won’t.

He promises himself he won’t.

Sharky noses his way under Dep’s jaw, tipping his chin, breathing deeply. The hickey on Dep’s throat is beneath his lips, faded now, mostly, from some time before Hope County, Sharky is almost positive. He hasn’t asked and he doesn’t intend to.

The mouth that made it was smaller than his own. It doesn’t matter. Sharky bites down over it, feeling possessive, feeling warm and delirious.

Things he had not meant to burn, going up in smoke and all he can do is watch and marvel.

Dep flinches against him. Hisses. Fingers clutching at Sharky’s shoulders as Sharky sucks the skin between his teeth.

“God, fuck,” he says. His cock rutting up against Sharky’s stomach. Still only half-hard. But getting there.

Likes it rough, all right.

There is only rough, rough touches when Sharky scours his hand up Dep’s dick. Twisting his palm against the head, feeling the slick leak of precome dribbling across his fingers.

As if in retaliation, Dep’s own fingers are pushing Sharky’s boxers out of the way, digging at the elastic to drag it down his hips. Grinding their cocks together once it is mostly free.

Rough, uneven strokes. More desperate than he had seemed when going down on Sharky almost a week ago now. Like it’s all been pent up, splitting at the seams.

The chain from his necklace digs into Sharky’s cheek, when Sharky lowers his head to lick the lingering wetness from Dep’s chest. Sweet, sweet Bliss and the first salty teases of sweat.

“Fuck,” Dep hisses when Sharky’s teeth find his nipple. “That’s so good, Shark.”

Sharky would say something quippy about practice making perfect, even opens his mouth to, but then Dep’s fingers are twisting harder over their dicks and the words sort of spiral past Sharky and are gone.

Gone.

It’s about movement and thrusting up into Dep’s hectic rhythm, matching his pace. Cock slick with water and precome and sweat. Relief after an hour of sitting mostly on edge.

Which is what he will blame for him coming so quickly. Grunting around Dep’s skin in his mouth and jerking into Dep’s grip once, twice more.

Spilling over Dep’s hand and Dep’s dick. Heat uncurling from his belly, spinning up and out through his limbs.

He sinks back against the couch, panting, spent. The first one done again. He should maybe be ashamed, but it’s hard to feel anything but satisfied as he watches Dep finish himself off.

More curling heat in his stomach as Dep wipes Sharky’s come against his cock to use as lube. Quick motions, both hands gripping himself now. His shoulders moving, light freckles on the skin. The hickey, Sharky’s hickey, stretched and flexing as Dep brings himself off.

Dep comes with little fanfare. He doesn’t say Sharky’s name, just curses under his breath as his hips snap up into his grip. Streaks of white splattering from his fist up onto his chest and onto Sharky’s lap. Making a mess of the two of them.

Sharky runs a finger through it, through some of the jizz that’s splashed across his own trembling stomach. “Good thing you showered, huh?” he says.

Dep’s nose wrinkles. One of his hands covers his eyes. “Can always take another.” He cracks his fingers enough to meet Sharky’s gaze. “Can always take it together.”

Sharky bites his lip. Thinks of his tiny shower with the two of them inside, bumping hips and elbows as they attempt to work getting clean. Pressed against the tile. Dep looming over him.

It makes him uncomfortable in a ridiculous way. Vulnerability like a wound. Sharky is not a robot, not inhuman. He can’t just walk it off.

Dep takes his silence as an answer. He goes stiff and cold in Sharky’s lap. He grins. “It was a joke,” he says. “It’s too small for the two of us anyway.”

“Dep...”

“Nah. Sharky it’s fine,” Dep says. “You should get cleaned up,” he says as he stands. As he grabs the towel and wipes off the evidence that anything ever happened.

Erased.

Sharky swallows, does the same when Dep tosses the towel to him.

“I should get you some clothes,” Sharky says. Not moving. Staring up at Dep who is staring down at him.

“Just a shirt would be fine. I don’t think your jeans will fit me.”

He’s not wrong. More square than Sharky, thicker thighs. Sharky tries to imagine them circling his hips like they had just been and fails. Imagines them pressing between his own instead, mattress beneath them and Dep’s weight pinning him in place, and the fluttering panic in the thought makes him stand. Shake it from himself physically.

He catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he crosses to his bedroom.

A line of pink across his cheek, bisecting the skin until it disappears into his beard, patterned and tender like a bruise.

He’s not superhuman.

He can’t walk this shit off.

—

Dep leaves. He goes ghost for a week and a half. Sharky knows that some of it is his fault. Most of it is.

Just shy of all of it.

At first, he sulks about it. He finishes the last of his beer, ends up dragging his ass to Hurk’s to beg some more off his cousin. 

And he tells himself as he goes that he isn’t gonna talk about what happened. Isn’t gonna talk about Dep at all. But he gets there and he gets deep, deep in the sauce and...

“Did you know he’s gay,” Sharky asks. He’s not slurring but the Jack has his tongue feeling loose. Foreign in his mouth.

Hurk grins, leans back in his chair. “Lil cuz, that man could wanna fuck bears for all I care. He’s doin’ good goddamn work out here. He’s good people. Just cuz he don’t have an interest in pussy don’t make him any less effective at what he does.”

Because unlike Sharky, Hurk knows how to roll with this stuff. Lets it slide off his back like water. He doesn’t get weird or stuck on the details. He’s fuckin’ cool. Sharky blows a breath out between his teeth and nurses his drink.

They don’t broach the topic of Dep and his sexuality again, but Sharky has a feeling that by the end of the night Hurk has figured at least some of it out.

Something in the way he claps Sharky on the shoulder as Sharky, stumbling and drunk off his ass, goes to leave. Something about the way Hurk squeezes his joint and grins and says: “It’ll all work out in the end, lil cuz, you’ll see. Monkey King ain’t gonna judge whatever little baby Jesus has decided to hit you with.”

And Sharky isn’t positive he knows what that means exactly. Like most of the wise shit Hurk says, some of it leaves Sharky in the dust. The intention is clear enough.

Hurk isn’t judging him.

Feeling worse off than he had before he got drunk as shit, Sharky makes his way home. To his trailer. With his stupid fuckin radio that has been silent, silent, silent for days.

Like a teenager. The silent treatment.

And it’s all Sharky’s fault.

He picks up the handset, bites his lip. Bites it harder.

“Hey...man...” he says. As if Dep will just...happen to be listening to this channel at just this minute. “I. I just wanted to apologize if I...Well if I—well, I’m just a fuckin’ asshole and you’re. Right uh. Cuz you’re. It really doesn’t matter. Right? You’re still pretty fuckin’ rad in my book. You’re an absolute badass. And I’m sorry.”

Sharky takes a breath. He lets it out. “For what it’s worth,” he adds.

Do not add no homo, he thinks.

And this time he doesn’t.

He doesn’t get the chance to. As he opens his mouth the radio crackles to life in his hands. Heavy breathing like a perverted call, a noise Sharky doesn’t quite recognize until he does. Dep’s voice, groaning, like when he tourniquets his own wounds.

Dep hurt.

Dep in danger.

“Sharky,” he says. And he sounds so far away and so weak.

Sharky’s heart is in his throat. Right there, in the hollow of it, beating beating beating. “Holy shit,” he says. “Dep?”

Another breath. It fills the space, pushes out of the walkie with such force Sharky can literally feel the plastic tremble. “I think-think I might need,” Dep says. His voice fading out. Fading in. Shaking.

“Where are you?” Sharky asks.

“Bleeding,” Dep says. “There’s a lot of—“

“Jesus, man, you have to tell me where.”

“Somewhere.”

That’s fucking helpful.

“West. John’s...” Dep swallows. The wet sound of his throat. “Near...fuck,” he says. “This is a lot of blood.”

This is a lot of blood.

It’s the most sober he has sounded since answering.

This is a lot of blood.

John’s territory. Somewhere in all of the Valley. Getting there alone will take an hour, at least. If there’s no roadblocks, no Peggy patrols to avoid, no random firefights to duck. Assuming Sharky drives breakneck the whole way without killing himself.

There’s a noise. Dep’s voice, high pitched, torn from him. “Shit,” he grunts. Then closer, like his mouth is touching the mic. “I think I can. I can make it to Fall’s End.”

“Dep!”

“Hey,” Dep says, “I can. I’m fucking rad, remember?”

Sharky’s heart coils in his throat. “Shut up,” he says. Mostly cuz he doesn’t know what else he can say. His cheeks feel inappropriately warm. “Do you...want to—“

“Yes. Meet me there. Look for Mary. She’ll probably—“

Sharky misses what comes next. Dep’s mouth too far from the mic, the sound of underbrush being shoved aside, cracking sticks, the trill of some animal, startled from sleep. The noise goes on for maybe four seconds, then the line cuts. 

“She’ll probably?” Sharky prompts.

No answer.

He’s either dead or maybe his walkie is. Sharky hopes it’s his walkie.

He really, really hopes.

The lingering buzz he had been feeling has fled his system with this new rush of adrenaline; Sharky is back out the door in an instant. Radio on his belt. Keys to the truck dangling from his fingers.

Somewhere out in the night, crickets are calling to one another. Trilling, trilling. It sounds like mourning.

He thinks of Dep’s arms, around the Peggie’s throat. The quick, clean snap in the close night air. He thinks of Dep’s weight across his knees and Dep’s contracting stomach muscles.

He can’t think of Dep dead.

He won’t think of it.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a part three, can’t leave us all with such a cliffhanger


End file.
